If the UK did not systematically disenfranchise its citizens of both the right to keep and bear arms and to use those arms to defend their homes, burglaries would be a rarity there.

Here in Arizona, where gun rights are strongly protected, burglaries are all but unheard of. Those burglaries that do occur tend to happen during the day, when the residents are expected to be at work. Attempting to burglarize a home at night is a very effective means of suicide.

On the other hand arizona's murder rate is far worse.Do we really need to mention the amount of gun related deaths in your country. It may astonish you but the american way of doing things is not always a a superior way of doing things.

If I want to kill someone and I don't have a gun handy, there are many other methods at my disposal. I can stab them, beat them to death with a baseball bat or crow bar. Some of us are good with a bow. I can even pound them into the pavement with my bare fists, and that is just for starters.

Yet the vast majority of us do not, and owning a gun does nothing to change that.

In the UK they are now trying to ban pointy knives because taking guns away didn't reduce violent crime, it merely shifted the tool used to commit it.

Gun ownership in the US is not merely something we have a right to, it is a right that the majority exercise. Most of us own guns. If guns themselves were a problem, then most of us would also be killers or otherwise engaged in violent acts. Instead most of us are peaceful, decent and law abiding citizens. Those who are not get locked up.

Gun ownership is a fundamental right on par with freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Anyone can yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre, but that does not mean that freedom of speech is itelf invalid. Freedom of speech and the freedom to keep and bear arms are the foundation of liberty that help to keep our society a free one. Without them, our Republic would fall into tyranny within two generations at most.

A Republic depends not only on informed citizens, but heavily armed ones as well. We are both the best defense against tyranny and the final check and balance under the constitution.

Yes, and automobile accident fatalities are also higher in Arizona, and in every society where car ownership is prevalent. That does not however mean that owning an automobile should be prohibited.

As I've stated elsehwere, those with murder in their hearts have many tools at their disposal. If a gun is not handy, knives and blunt objects are more than servicable.

The only purpose that disarming the public serves is to make them more vulnerable to would-be tyrants. This is in fact the primary motivation of those who seek to do this. Disarmament is the first step towards disenfranchisement.

If the UK did not systematically disenfranchise its citizens of both the right to keep and bear arms and to use those arms to defend their homes, burglaries would be a rarity there.

Here in Arizona, where gun rights are strongly protected, burglaries are all but unheard of. Those burglaries that do occur tend to happen during the day, when the residents are expected to be at work. Attempting to burglarize a home at night is a very effective means of suicide.

You might have a point, except that the FBI reports ~50,000 cases of burglary in Arizona in the past year (population 6 million) and the Metropolitan Police report ~60,000 for the whole of London (population 7.8 million) so.....

My ex-wife is British and I've spent a fair bit of time across the pond. In my ex's home town of Stoke-on-Trent, burglary is a persistent fear and everyone has either been burgled, or has a close friend or family member who has. I was shocked when I first arrived there at how fearful everyone was. Then I found out that the government not only denied its citizens the right to keep and bear arms, but also forbade them from protecting their lives and property. The latter part has now been at least somewhat reversed, but at the time it was commonly understood that to defend your home against an invader would result in your incarceration rather than his.

There in stoke the homes being broken into are in normal middle class (under the American definition) neighborhoods. Everyone has an alarm system installed. Admittedly so do nicer homes here in America, but far from all of them, and most of those that are installed are not used.

Most burglaries here are drug related. Junkies break into houses looking for drugs, or money to buy drugs, or things to fence for money to buy drugs. As a result you are going to see burglaries concentrated in the slums, among people who do drugs, not in normal neighborhoods where normal people live. (We don't have the vast council house estates that the UK does.)

I'll bet you that if you were to look at the 50,000 burglaries you are citing, the vast majority of them are concentrated in the slums of South Phoenix and in other such areas.

London, by comparison, is a very expensive place to live. Comparing all of Phoenix, slums and all, with a city where the slums have all been reclaimed through gentrification, doesn't make much sense.

Where do druggies, criminals and the like live in the London area anyway?

You might have a point, except that the FBI reports ~50,000 cases of burglary in Arizona in the past year (population 6 million) and the Metropolitan Police report ~60,000 for the whole of London (population 7.8 million) so.....

Gun ownership would perhaps lower burglary rates for a while, but then the burglars become armed and nothing changes. Though of course, if you are a junkie, you are not likely to get a gun. So perhaps it would work a bit more permanently.
Guns would basically be a relief of symptoms but not the cure of burglary. It is short sighted to think someone rationally burgles a house. Some would be discouraged if we all had guns, but others would arm themselves or simply mug people. If you actually fixed the root cause of burglary, such as drug abuse, homelessness, bad parenting, lack of communal respect, then burglary would fall and no one would need guns. Burglary will always happen, but overall rates could fall. Locking the burglars up or shooting them gets rid of the burglar, but not burglary.